Burial in the Clouds Read Online Free Page A
Author: Hiroyuki Agawa
identical seamanâs uniform. With some of these men, I had kicked a ball about on the field, sung, and debated philosophy, until just two months ago. I will probably never see them again.
Kashima is rather bohemian. He acquainted himself once with the proprietress of a certain âtea houseâ in Miyagawa-cho. He hung out there all the timeâall but boarded there. On another occasion he simply cut his classes and military drills, sojourning for a month at a hot spring in Aomori. Like Fujikura, he has been either harshly critical of the war, or else indifferent to it. But now I suppose he, too, has but one choiceânamely, to bear his fate with courage, and fight battles. I wanted to say a word of farewell to thank him for the dried persimmons, but it was too dark for me to make him out in the long procession.
Fujikura and Sakai have also been assigned to the aviation branch. That means they will go to Tsuchiura with me. After the Yokosuka group left, the long row of hammocks looked like a set of gums with teeth missing. It was ominous. We were given travel expenses and briefed on the journey in the afternoon. We set forth tomorrow morning.
Tsuchiura Naval Air Station
February 20
Itâs Sunday, but it looks like we wonât be allowed to leave the base for a while.
The chief instructor gave us a sermon after morning assembly. He said the reputation of student reservists like us is absolutely rotten, not merely in each operational unit, but at headquarters too. Our general slipshoddiness, he said, and our deficiencies as to loyalty, have drawn severe fire within the military establishment. Some even ventured to suggest that we student reservists are little better than monkeys dolled up in officersâ uniforms. So he wondered: Had we ever really made up our minds to devote ourselves to the navy? Didnât some of us still regard navy life as a kind of interim arrangement? We should never entertain thoughts of visiting home, not even if our parents die. Each one of us shall perish in the decisive engagements of the war by this coming summer. Continue to be off guard, he admonished, and we would sully the tradition of the Imperial Navy. If we should ever find ourselves of two minds, suspended between the possibilities of life and death, we should without hesitation choose death. Etc. etc.
Itâs not that we must prepare ourselves to die by summer. No, he is telling us simply to die. They never miss an opportunity to tell us to die. What, in the name of heaven, is their goal? Is it to carry the war through to completion, or merely to kill us all? If we really can save our country by dying, then by all means let us do precisely that. Since February 1, the day of the ceremony marking the assignment of the 14th Class of student reserves to the aviation branch, we have known that we must confront death. We are trying hard, lame though we may be, to brace ourselves for it, yet I cannot for the life of me believe that dying is itself the goal. It is pointless, no matter how you look at it, to rush headlong and heedless into the grave, and if I follow the chief instructorâs dictates to the letter, wouldnât it qualify as âdisloyaltyâ even to seek shelter during an air raid? Iâm not a rebel like Fujikura, but even I took offense at the chief instructorâs words. After all, who made us give up our academic work? Who rounded up these âmonkeysâ and put them in uniform?
Our life at Tsuchiura Naval Air Station is simply inhumane. Cigarettes are strictly rationed. Not because we donât have a sufficient supply, it is just that we should not in any degree be comfortable. So I seldom smoke, and when I smoke I feel dizzy.
As for correspondence, we are permitted only one postcard a week. But then the one postcard I wrote last week, to Kashima at Takeyama Naval Barracks, was returned to me because the censor said my handwriting was too small! I was instructed to write in
Kashima is rather bohemian. He acquainted himself once with the proprietress of a certain âtea houseâ in Miyagawa-cho. He hung out there all the timeâall but boarded there. On another occasion he simply cut his classes and military drills, sojourning for a month at a hot spring in Aomori. Like Fujikura, he has been either harshly critical of the war, or else indifferent to it. But now I suppose he, too, has but one choiceânamely, to bear his fate with courage, and fight battles. I wanted to say a word of farewell to thank him for the dried persimmons, but it was too dark for me to make him out in the long procession.
Fujikura and Sakai have also been assigned to the aviation branch. That means they will go to Tsuchiura with me. After the Yokosuka group left, the long row of hammocks looked like a set of gums with teeth missing. It was ominous. We were given travel expenses and briefed on the journey in the afternoon. We set forth tomorrow morning.
Tsuchiura Naval Air Station
February 20
Itâs Sunday, but it looks like we wonât be allowed to leave the base for a while.
The chief instructor gave us a sermon after morning assembly. He said the reputation of student reservists like us is absolutely rotten, not merely in each operational unit, but at headquarters too. Our general slipshoddiness, he said, and our deficiencies as to loyalty, have drawn severe fire within the military establishment. Some even ventured to suggest that we student reservists are little better than monkeys dolled up in officersâ uniforms. So he wondered: Had we ever really made up our minds to devote ourselves to the navy? Didnât some of us still regard navy life as a kind of interim arrangement? We should never entertain thoughts of visiting home, not even if our parents die. Each one of us shall perish in the decisive engagements of the war by this coming summer. Continue to be off guard, he admonished, and we would sully the tradition of the Imperial Navy. If we should ever find ourselves of two minds, suspended between the possibilities of life and death, we should without hesitation choose death. Etc. etc.
Itâs not that we must prepare ourselves to die by summer. No, he is telling us simply to die. They never miss an opportunity to tell us to die. What, in the name of heaven, is their goal? Is it to carry the war through to completion, or merely to kill us all? If we really can save our country by dying, then by all means let us do precisely that. Since February 1, the day of the ceremony marking the assignment of the 14th Class of student reserves to the aviation branch, we have known that we must confront death. We are trying hard, lame though we may be, to brace ourselves for it, yet I cannot for the life of me believe that dying is itself the goal. It is pointless, no matter how you look at it, to rush headlong and heedless into the grave, and if I follow the chief instructorâs dictates to the letter, wouldnât it qualify as âdisloyaltyâ even to seek shelter during an air raid? Iâm not a rebel like Fujikura, but even I took offense at the chief instructorâs words. After all, who made us give up our academic work? Who rounded up these âmonkeysâ and put them in uniform?
Our life at Tsuchiura Naval Air Station is simply inhumane. Cigarettes are strictly rationed. Not because we donât have a sufficient supply, it is just that we should not in any degree be comfortable. So I seldom smoke, and when I smoke I feel dizzy.
As for correspondence, we are permitted only one postcard a week. But then the one postcard I wrote last week, to Kashima at Takeyama Naval Barracks, was returned to me because the censor said my handwriting was too small! I was instructed to write in
Readers choose
Joe Abercrombie
William C. Dietz
Colleen Connally
John Shirley
John Irving
Breena Wilde
Robyn Schneider
Carolyn Faulkner
Jay Northcote
Michael Freeport